


We're the same...you and I

by the_authors_exploits



Series: Strangers in Nothing but Name [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe-Crossover, Angst, Crossover, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 22:55:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6169966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_authors_exploits/pseuds/the_authors_exploits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason is an accelerant, easily flammable, and Loki? Loki is burning</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Reflection

**Author's Note:**

> I found [this lovely poem](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/we-re-the-same-you-and-i/) and thought it really fit Jason and Loki
> 
>  
> 
> [Come talk to me on tumblr](http://ace--jace.tumblr.com/)

Jason takes three long steps into the room; his shoulders were straight and strong, confidence rolling off him in waves. This was his domain; he would make it so, even with three SHIELD guards blocking his way. When they step forward to stop him from entering any further, Jason carefully, slowly, releases the latches on his helmet and lifts it away, tucking it beneath his arm.

“Get out.” He orders. “Captain America’s orders.” He inclines his head over his shoulder trying to shoo them out faster; he really doesn’t have much time.

“Sir, we really can’t…” one starts, but another nameless guard slaps him on the shoulder.

“Cap’s orders, Franky; best not to question it.” The man nods at Jason and the three shuffle, albeit hesitantly, pass him and out the door; it hisses shut behind them, and then he is alone with the big baddy of the week.

He goes forward two steps before the man raises his head and grins; the lights illuminating the small glass cage shine off his pearly white teeth, catching on the sigils etched into the polished glass. Jason isn’t deterred or intimidated by the threatening smile, and he comes to stand halfway in the warmth of the hot lamp above; it’s a simple, if cruel, method of detainment and Jason almost feels pitiful for the man who’s covered in a fine sheen of sweat.

“Well,” the snake hisses. “Isn’t this a surprise.”

Jason adamantly doesn’t fidget with the mask pressed over his eyes, nor does he look away. “Hello, Loki.”

The god tips his head to the side, but hasn’t yet stood from the bench in the middle of his prison. “To what do I owe this lovely visit? Surely you aren’t here to beat me further; you did a fine job of that earlier, Phoenix.”

He hadn’t; Loki had flung him into a parked car, successfully dazing him, and then opened the earth to swallow him for a good 45 minutes. Jason shakes his head. “I tried, at least; did you?”

Loki’s smile drops into a glare and Jason thinks he’s definitely not amused anymore. “There is no point in fighting if I do not mean to try. I’m sure you’re aware of that, young Todd—” Jason would like to think he doesn’t flinch, but he does. “After all, shouldn’t you be dead?”

Loki slowly rises to his full height, unfolding from his position in all his royal, villainy glory, and Jason has to look up seven inches as the god stalks closer.

“What do you know about death? I’ve heard you’ve faked it twice,” Jason grins; deflects. He can do that. “That’s gotta be nice, to just…vanish and ignore your issues.”

“Ignore.” He glides closer, hands folded behind his back, and head held high. “Of course you mortal would think I ignored my issues; you can’t possibly understand the point of plotting, and waiting for the perfect opportunity. It’s about patience, young one, and using one’s brain.”

Jason shakes his head. “I know about you; I know about your issues.”

“You know nothing,” Loki snarls, his face twisting in what Jason thinks is anguish and frustration. “You cannot understand, you do not kno—”

“Your dads suck.”

Loki stutters to a stop and his face turns to impassivity; he straightens further, stiffens and Jason just watches him. “You know nothing.”

“Your biological dad is considered a monster but technically is probably just a huge jerk, depending upon which POV you’re looking at; your adopted father lied to you about everything, and most likely wasn’t the most attentive to you—tell me if I’m getting anything right here, okay?” But Jason knows; he can see it in the slight wrinkling around Loki’s eyes, the slightest dip in his brows. And he knows too, because he’s heard the story—in not such a sympathetic light—from Thor. “And it sucks; the whole thing does.”

Loki tips his head to the side in thought; he brushes his wrist casually over his forehead, brushing aside flecks of sweat. “And do tell where you got such a story?”

“Thor; he likes to talk about you.”

“Ahh, yes, Thor! Wonderful Thor, what a lovely piece of sun that blots out the beauty of the stars.”

“I suppose he’s a bit….boisterous.” Jason thinks he sees the slightest twitch at the corners of Loki’s mouth, as bitter as it may be, and he himself cracks a smile as if to coax one from the god of lies. “And besides, it’s not that hard to see it; hell, my bio dad was an abusive shithead and my adopted one was always comparing me to his first son. ‘Dick wouldn’t have done that’, ‘Dick’s so agile’, ‘Dick moves smoother than you, swift and efficiently’…”

Loki huffs a laugh; he turns on his heel and moves stiffly back to his bench, sitting down slowly. Jason thinks he’s got to be hurting; the sigils are etched into the glass to suppress his magic, and the heating lamp is there to tire out his Jotun body. Thor had explained to Shield, highly reluctantly, what could be used to keep Loki submissive; Jason tries to dissociate from feeling pity.

“What a horrible childhood you must have had, mortal.”

Jason hears the mocking tone, but doesn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he plows on. “So yeah, I get it. Shitty life, am I right? But that doesn’t mean you should be taking it out on innocents. What’s the point to that?”

Loki laughs hoarsely. “The point? To suffer; to make others suffer.”

“Well that’s stupid.”

And Loki’s visage turns from a casual attempt at indifference to indignation and rage. “How dare you,” he seethes, but Jason continues.

“Shouldn’t you want to keep others from suffering as you have? That’s what makes sense; ‘cause, you know, you know how it feels and it sucks.” Jason hikes the helmet higher, fitting it against his hip; he’s unsure. Yeah, they have similarities but are they really so similar to feel the same way about the atrocities they’ve went through?

Loki rises again, slowly and calmly, and takes several deliberate steps until he’s directly on the other side of the glass, leaning an arm on the glass and bending down some as if to tower over Jason; Jason, proudly, doesn’t flinch but he can’t help but swallow thickly. The man is intimidating, there’s no doubt about it, and though Jason isn’t easily intimidated he’s literally staring down a god who could kill him with the flick of his finger—he’s playing with gasoline in the midst of a forest fire.

“Why fight evil when you yourself are evil?” A wicked grin paints his face and, for a second, Jason sees it plastered over his reflection in the glass; Jason is not playing with gasoline. He _is_ gasoline, dancing and jumping over patches of fire and one wrong step will see him burn.

“Are you? Evil, that is; because I think if you were, your dad—the adopted one, one-eyed Odin or whatever—wouldn’t have given you a chance.”

Loki doesn’t say anything; finally, he tips his head to the side with a satisfied smirk and Jason has the feeling something important has happened. “And you…” Loki changes topic like a landslide. “You certainly know how it feels; to be tortured, yes?” There’s a cruel twist to Loki’s lips and he suddenly doesn’t look like a man to be pitied; he looks like a cornered animal, rabid and hungry for blood. “To feel your bones snap, and your resolve crumble. To feel the air in your lungs torn from you, shocked so much that your heart stops.”

He’s wanted to believe for so long that these images would not choke him, would not take hold of his throat and close his airway; that he’s currently trying not to blink for fear of a flashback, that his feet are frozen and he can feel his muscles straining to expel the bottle of water he drank after their battle. He can’t move, so he tries to speak. “This isn’t about me…”

“Ohh, yes, you know what it’s like for the heat to melt you into a sickly puddle; you know what it’s like to trust people and then have it ripped from you. You don’t think I can’t see it? You wear a mask, but you cannot hide from me, young _Jason_.”

It’s an intimate gesture, Jason thinks, to use his first name.

“I see your eyes; I see the vacancy there. And you know what else I see?” A hand slams against the glass and Jason jolts violently; Loki’s lips curl. “I see remnants of death; you really shouldn’t be here.” His nails, long things that Alfred would scold Jason for letting grow so long, scratch against the glass until the hand settles right over Jason’s heart—and squeezes. “There’s a strong magic in you; a dirty vile thing. It’s green, isn’t it?”

The Lazarus Pit; the helmet clatters to the ground, rolling away into the shadows.

“I felt it in you out there, and the moment you stepped through that door.” Loki shudders a deep breath, lets it out. “What I could do with this power; ohh, the things I could show you.” Loki twists his hand, his face snarling and tormented, and suddenly Jason can’t breathe.

It’s like when Joker broke his ribcage; there’s a pressure crushing him, and a tug in his abdomen that is half nausea half panic. He can’t quiet suck in air, but everything has been pushed out from him; as Loki continues to talk—monologuing and god isn’t that just so annoying?—Jason feels like his veins are on fire and every heart beat is excruciating. He’d scream, he thinks, if his lungs worked.

“It’s everywhere in you,” there’s a lilt to Loki’s voice, hyper and excited. “And you can’t even tell; oh, it’s beautiful, little thing.”

Jason’s mouth is forced open, and then there’s a film of green smoke, transparent and weak, filtering out of his mouth and towards Loki’s hands; despite the sigil barrier, it passes through the glass and folds into Loki’s hands.

“The dark magic of necromancy, in the most lowly of terms; not quiet bringing life, but mending in the dark. And how much healing have you had to have gone through, and still so broken; so _useless_.”

The door hisses open and there are shouts; but Jason’s vision is darkening, his heart aching and slowing, it’s like he’s dying all over again, but with an awareness he didn’t have the first time. His veins are draining, there’s a man in blue standing in front of him, blocking him from Loki and pushing him back into—arms, warm arms, and the green smoke is released. It sucks back into his body and his limbs ache; he coughs, hearing again.

“What have you done? Tell me!” That’s Steve, standing in front of him with his shield raised.

A voice barks from near Jason’s ear, where he’s collapsed against a strong chest. “Thor said he couldn’t use magic in there; what the hell?”

“I didn’t use magic,” Loki speaks slowly, slyly; he’s folded his hands behind his back and his face has gone impassive, that crazed hunger hiding. “I merrily called upon a stronger force.”

Bucky—because it’s Bucky who’s keeping him upright right now, adjusting his grip and trying to drag him away—growls. “What the hell?”

Jason catches glimpse of the three guards from earlier with their guns aimed at the trickster god.

“Someone go get Thor! Fuck, Jay, are you with me? Jay?”

But Jason doesn’t respond; he’s watching Loki, watching the minute twitches in his shoulder at the mention of the thunder god, the far off longing he thinks that’s there.

“You don’t fight against evil…” Jason gasps, and Bucky doesn’t quite let him go but doesn’t hold him back either though it’s obvious he wants to; he stumbles a step forward, looking right at Loki and clutching at his chest. His heart still hurts as it swells with life again; it hurts and he wants to lay down. “You can’t fight against what hurt you like I do because…”

Loki looks horrified; his eyes are blown wide and his mouth is resolutely clenched shut. Jason wants to cry.

“Because you still love him, don’t you?”

There’s a pause; a long pause, one where no one dares break it. Jason can imagine Loki, dark and mysterious and _powerful_ Loki, quiet and unassuming besides the almighty, feared Thor; juxtaposition at its most majestic, two different powers meshing perfectly, tragedy at its finest. Finally, Loki speaks.

“Do _you_ still love him?”

Yes, Jason thinks as he lets Bucky and Steve usher him away; he loves Bruce.


	2. A Dismissal

Loki had felt that power from the first encounter with the child; foolish mortal, prancing about as if he wasn’t holding a magical storm in his veins. But Loki had wanted to play with the others, the _Avengers_ , and to test this seidr bearer, so he had tossed the being aside and willed the earth to open; by the time the boy was rescued, Loki had been subdued in the glass coffin.

It really isn’t, he thinks, that different from the one for that green beast; round, clear, solid, the only differences the sigils in the glass and the heat lamp above. Sweat drips down his spine, but he still sits menacingly upon the bench provided; he feels the press of his magic against the sigils, fighting to be free, but these mortals grasped Asgardian preventatives well.

He can still feel the thrum of energy, of power, of _bitterness_ and _souls_ , steaming from the boy. Ages ago, he would have found it distasteful to sense such dark, demented, and devastating magic—but now, all he wants is power. Power to be seen, to be heard, to be known and respected; he wants that power.

So when the boy comes and makes it so easy for Loki to feel it, to grasp it, wrap his mind and spiritual fingers about the wisps and _pull_ , he does; he doesn’t care that it’s what is keeping the boy alive, that if he pulls it out and draws it to himself—bypassing the sigils that are made to hold his magic, not this power—then the boy will drop dead to the ground.

So he buys his time, plays word games with the child, catalogues his tactics to use against him later; but the boy speaks truth, seems to see everything that Loki tries to hide (even from himself), and Loki finds it hard to stay as unaffected as he had wanted to.

And then the others come, the _Captain America_ and his ghost lover; and they drag the boy away, taking away Loki’s power, but he expected as much. It always ends like this, it just matters whether it’s Odin or Thor or Mortals, Asgard or Midgard or someone else. So Loki sits back down again, ignores the dryness in the back of his throat, and ponders what the child had said.

_“You can’t fight against what hurt you because you still love him, don’t you?”_

No, it was a lie; Loki loves no one. He cares for no one but himself, but laughing and destroying, doing what he is _good at_. He’s good at being a monster, so that’s all he cares about. He doesn’t love anything but himself and power.

But then the door is opening and in steps the ghost and the god; one all shadowed in his face, hair long but well-kept, dressed in dark armor and a light blue armored top—the other? The other Loki knows so well; tall, those broad shoulders, that tangled head of hair. Loki wonders if he’s bothered to find anyone to braid his hair; that had always fallen to Loki before…

“Brother,” Thor speaks as he nears; the guards there, a larger number than before, easily glide out of his way. “What have you done?”

“Ah, Thor,” Loki mutters; he hides his weariness well. He straightens his shoulders, steeples his fingers, and smirks over the folded hands.

“What did you do?”

“You’ll have to be more specific than that, dearest Thor; I’ve done a lot in my lifetime.” Loki sighs. “So many accomplishments, so many grand feats.”

“The boy, Loki!” Thor gestures with his hammer, out towards the door he’d come through. “What did you do to the boy?”

“Ah, you mean that gullible child?” Loki doesn’t want to stand up, though he feels like he should, like it is the opportune time in his gloating to stand and walk about; but he’s so tired and it‘s so warm and he feels like he is going to collapse if he leans too far back or forward. “Are you aware he is not supposed to be alive?”

Thor hesitates, even going so far as to look down at his shuffling feet; Loki feels the slightest bit of satisfaction at that. The ghost, the ghost looks murderous and Loki briefly wonders what a wonderful monster the man would make. “I am…aware.”

“Then you should also be aware of the dark magic it took; surely you aren’t that dumb as to not know.”

“Necromancy, you mean.”

Loki smiles; “But of course; to think such mortals could wield such immortal power. Perhaps they aren’t as imbecilic as we first thought.”

Thor shook his head. “It matters not what energy was used to bring the boy back; what you did to him was wrong. You could have killed him.”

“Well I wouldn’t have attempted to absorb his powers if I had known.” But the smirk on his face, the lilt in his voice that belays any sort of regret, means he’s lying; at the silence that meets his proclamation, Loki chuckles. Loud and slow and sly…

Thor looks like he might cry, and Loki truly hopes he won’t; it’s always so embarrassing when he cries, and it’ll be Loki’s fault. At that thought, he stops laughing; he stares Thor down instead. It’s his only option right now.

“Oh, Loki… Where did I go wrong? Where did we go so wrong as for you to be fine with throwing away life?” Thor, shoulders slumped, wipes his eyes with a large, calloused hand; Loki purposefully doesn’t focus on that. He remembers things, remembers those hands steady him when he was little and just learning to toddle, remembers hands pulling him from the battle field; he should have never let that undead boy get to him the way he did.

When Thor looks at him again, he’s determined and Loki feels like he’s missed something important. “I wish you could see the honor in that boy; despite the darkness, despite what has befallen him, he still fights for the best. He has the same honor I saw in you once, when you begged for diplomacy instead of war, even in the faces of all those delegates mocking you. Even in the face of a disappointed king and a frustrated brother, you spoke for peace instead of war. I believe you still have that honor somewhere, brother; I wish you to only find it.”

Before Loki can bark a laugh, Thor turns and leaves, his cape flapping as he goes; and then it’s just the fallen god and the ghost left, the plethora of guards their unwilling audience. Loki determines not to acknowledge the ghost; for all the villainy he could do, the man is not worth Loki’s time.

But the ghost has other plans; he hangs back in the shadows, but his voice is strong, low, bordering on threatening. “Was Jason onto something?”

Loki only glances his way for a moment.

“Do you still love him?”

“Love?” Loki spits.

“Thor,” the ghost speaks. “Or even Odin. Do you still love them?”

Loki sneers. “I love no one.”

Finally, the ghost steps forward into the light; he unfolds his arms, the blue armor creaking. “Then why don’t you fight him? Why don’t you attack him, why don’t you hurt him?”

“But I am hurting him; Thor adores you mortals, he suddenly adores justice and saving lowly beasts. So I am here to end you. To tear apart you before his eyes.” Loki squares his shoulders, stretching; the leather is beginning to chaff in this heat. “I pluck his heart and crush it into to dust.”

For a while, neither says anything; they stare each other down and Loki wills the man to leave. He doesn’t; he huffs a sad laugh. “And yet Thor only ever weeps for you and your madness.” He goes for the door then, finally, blessedly. “Jason sees something in you; I don’t know what, but he keeps telling me to ‘put the fucking gun down, I’m fine’. Whatever he sees, I hope you realize it.” The ghost looks are him, looks through him, and only ever Frigga made Loki feel so exposed with just a glance. “It’s a lonely life you’re choosing; I would know.”

An hour after the ghost’s departure, a glass of iced water arrives; Loki doesn’t know who sent it, these damned mortals are becoming increasingly unpredictable, but he accepts it willingly. He’ll need his strength to execute his escape plan, a delicate scrawl etched into the center of his cage to negate the sigils just enough to call upon a portal.

He has to regroup, to piece himself back together, in peace; he feels raw and flayed and he wants to destroy the ghost and his undead boy for torturing him so.

He doesn’t love anyone. _He doesn’t._

He speaks the lie until it becomes truth again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My headcanon is that even though Jason was brought back by a 'glitch in the timeline' it's really the Lazerus Pit's magical powers that are keeping him alive and that really healed him; hence why, when Loki tried to pull it out of Jason, Jason started to go unconscious and felt like he was dying in chapter one.


End file.
